


Be Clever, Be Wise, Be Brave, Be Kind

by Connor_Soong



Series: Ineffable Inspiration [1]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Agnes Nutter's Prophecies, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Anxious Crowley (Good Omens), BAMF Aziraphale (Good Omens), Canon-Typical Violence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Kidnapping, M/M, Other, Post-Canon, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Soft Crowley (Good Omens), Sushi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-25
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2020-09-26 06:49:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20385442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Connor_Soong/pseuds/Connor_Soong
Summary: Despite the peace to follow the lack of Armageddon, Aziraphale hasn't been able to shake the feeling that someone still has a grudge against both himself and Crowley. Inspirational notebooks, new nice and accurate prophecies, kidnapping, miracles, flaming swords, child endangerment, fear, cake, and long-overdue realizations follow a simple trip to a bookshop, testing the bounds of loyalty on all fronts.Rated T for language and some violence.





	Be Clever, Be Wise, Be Brave, Be Kind

**Author's Note:**

> Howdy ineffable readers- this is my first Good Omens fic, as well as my first piece on AO3, and I'm starting off 'strong' by posting at 5 am after inspiration hit to edit more instead of sleep. 
> 
> Please feel free to drop a comment if I left anything unclear or if you just have a comment or question.  
\--

The days since the fulfillment of Agnes Nutter's last published prophecy had been hazy, as if Heaven and Hell had well and truly withdrawn. There had been rather more than seven of them so far, and it had just begun to rain when Aziraphale stepped out of a cab in Manchester with a polite dip of his head and an unsightly stumble over the curb. He flushed and folded his hands, standing up straight to regain his poise, but didn't open his umbrella. There was something nostalgic and alive about the sensation of standing free of the watchful eye of his superiors and letting the first drops of a much-needed storm reach him unperturbed.

For a few moments he simply closed his eyes and raised his face toward the heavens, grateful to be conscious and corporeal on this worn sidewalk under a blue-grey sky in a rainstorm six-thousand years in the making, and breathed in the cool, humid air; air that smelled of life and clung to him in molecules that buzzed with childlike energy. Here in the city air didn’t carry a wholly pleasant scent like the first rain over the green of the garden and the untrodden sands- but distant smog, wet grass, and tobacco were at least _something,_ sensations lost to the clinical purity of Heaven who did not sully their astral forms with gross matter. He’d been a cog in their wheel, one neutron of many that had remained dutiful and contented for far too long before straying to form a radiant isotope. Thinking of Heaven even as a chemical metaphor caused him to shudder minutely, as he lost the vague, floating feeling of autonomy in his microcosm of the universe to the prickling suspicion that he was being studied.

Opening his eyes as a shoulder collided with his and a gentleman in a raincoat grumbled something about drunk dandies needing to get off the footpaths, Aziraphale blinked and cast his gaze once more downward. He supposed as more bodies bustled around him and the rain began to drown out nearby conversations that he should heed the complaint and get on with his task. He was getting a bit chilly as the rain soaked through his layers, anyway.

With a small sigh the Angel assumed an unimposing, compact posture to maneuver past a large group of teenagers waiting at the crossing who bore tempting-looking frozen coffee drinks and one umbrella between them. Clearing his throat with a polite, “Excuse me?” he offered his umbrella to one of the young fellows doing without, smiling brightly as it was gratefully accepted and used to shield the young man and a companion. He watched the youthful group cross the street with a fond smile- they were so new to this world that would go on far after them, but they smiled brighter than the stars at such simple pleasures as coffee and companionship. Aziraphale supposed he should feel free to continue doing the same now without worrying about who was watching, but he still felt restrained by six millennia of strict social conventions and the uncanny, hollow feeling that nothing had really changed.

He passed several shops and restaurants in his single-minded haste to reach his destination, though his gaze did linger at the storefront promising 'Sakura Rotating Sushi.’ It was a fad lifted from Japan that he had yet to participate in after Crowley implied that Hell had invented it to make cheap seafood more accessible to humans and microbes.

_"Might've been me, I dunno, the 50s were a blur. Equanil came out halfway through and the Sidecar didn't help,"_ the Demon had argued.

Aziraphale held privately that knowing his enthusiasm for the Japanese delicacy, Crowley wouldn't have deliberately sabotaged a branch of its service just to upset some human stomachs and had argued that there were high-class shops where the plates were insulated and very carefully monitored to prevent bacterial occupancy. However, he hadn't yet convinced the Demon to accompany him to such a restaurant, and it didn't seem the sort of activity geared toward single diners without a companion to marvel with at the delightful methods humans had manufactured to play with their food. As such, he'd refrained from popping in to any of the establishments he had come across on his outings.

Before he'd come up with an argument suitable for tempting a Demon to a sushi luncheon, Aziraphale found himself at the door of the cramped little shop he'd come to browse- Rameses Books and Writing Supplies. He had heard through the grapevine that the owner might have a signed first edition of ‘1984’ to add to his growing collection of speculative dystopian fiction. The Angel had supposed that with Armageddon behind him he was freer to begin befriending and blessing authors again, but his grasp on current and up-and-coming writers had faded over the eleven years he'd been preoccupied with the Antichrist and agonizing over where his loyalties lie.

For now, he sated his want for the written word of prophecy by seeking existing works that weren't quite predictive but could chill an angel with their commentary on humanity. Orwell’s prose read like an admonition of the evil born from subservience- really, he should have introduced Heaven to the man’s works while he was trying to get through to them about questioning the Great Plan, but he supposed they would have balked and damned it as insolence. Gabriel was still bitter about the ending of To Kill a Mockingbird; Aziraphale had assured him it was beautifully tragic, but the Archangel could only consider the book an example of the failings of human judgement to be cleared away by Armageddon's inevitable erasure of the unworthy.

Aziraphale pressed on through the open door of the shop as he tamped down his combative thoughts, grimacing at the stack of aged books serving as a doorstop a mere meter from the damp sidewalk. Swiftly he forced his eyes away lest he miracle them onto a shelf or be overheard muttering about negligence. He straightened his tartan bow tie, experimenting with a polite smile at his damp reflection in the window as he shook the water from his curls before entering the display area. He dripped a little on the carpet, but with the anxious feeling which roiled in his gut he didn’t want to fall into a miracle loop by drying himself and running into someone who’d seen him outside without a plausible explanation.

The shop beyond the entry hall appeared to consist only of three walls of bookshelves. Before these sat a row of cluttered tables and baskets full of odds and ends, and a desk along the empty wall where a man of another time sat still as death before an old-fashioned till. His tweed jacket and cap almost blended in with the woody colors of the shop at large, and behind a large pair of spectacles his eyes were closed; Aziraphale hoped sincerely that the man was only resting but didn’t check for fear of disturbing him.

The Angel had also decided against clearing his throat and asking about 1984 outright. He felt like he'd invaded the shopkeeper's soul already without also interrupting his rest. He knew the feeling of sanctuary offered by the written word, and how it was easily shattered by voices eager to steal away with others’ words. The claustrophobic space was occupied only by muted colors and the smell of paper yellowed with time-

_-Ah, and a customer._

Aziraphale tried his very hardest not to startle as the other shopper appeared suddenly from where they'd been presumably squatting to survey a low basket of writing utensils. He succeeded in mostly dampening his initial reaction, flinching minutely and averting his eyes as if he’d been scanning a distant shelf, but he'd caught a damning glimpse of dark glasses and a fiery red coif.

"Crowley?! What are you doing here?" he chided, as though the Demon had followed him in here and not apparently the other way around. Crowley had every right to appreciate books… but as a rule he seemed to avoid them outside the walls of A.Z. Fell and Co. The Angel simply couldn't help being caught off guard running right into him the first time he’d gone this far from his shop alone since the Armageddidn't. He worried that something new was afoot and Crowley had caught wind of a plot he needed to warn him about away from prying eyes.

Crowley, however, simply crossed his arms, a white quill ink pen in his hand, and looked Aziraphale over with one eyebrow cocked. He watched the puddle forming at the Angel’s feet, pointing at it before gesturing at Zira’s entire body with the feather pen.

“Did you forget an umbrella, angel, or did swimming in your clothes become fashionable again while we were busy?”

“I- no. I just wanted to enjoy the rain,” Aziraphale confessed, the words spilling out with an awkward weight of honesty. He bit his lip as he shivered, giving away that he perhaps had made a miscalculation. “I didn’t expect it to be so chilly…”

“Riiiight.” The Demon purposefully rolled the serpentine eyes behind his sunglasses in slow motion before snapping his fingers; the water pooling in the Angel’s tracks evaporated, as did the moisture soaking through Aziraphale’s clothes and hair.

Without acknowledging the impromptu Demonic miracle, Crowley continued, "As for your question, Hell doesn't own me anymore, angel. I can go wherever I please. And _today_ I please kitschy shops with eclectic taste in _non_sense." He held up the feather pen, waggling it as a smirk of amusement broke his play-incredulous scowl, and continued in a gloating growl, "I can pretend it's that bastard Gabriel's whenever I want to write down something truly profane. Or draw pornography- sure he’d _love_ that."

Aziraphale sighed, glancing cautiously to the surprisingly still dozing cashier who’d luckily missed Crowley’s foul language and Demonic miracle working… before gaping in dawning disbelief at the snickering Demon before him. "Did you do something to the owner?" he whined, relieved that the man wouldn't overhear their casual references to Heaven and Hell but losing hope that he'd have a chance to discuss Orwell today. Knowing Crowley’s playful carelessness with witness manipulation, at best the shopkeeper would awake to a short period of dazedness before stumbling to bed with no memory of the day, including Aziraphale’s earlier telephone call.

"Ohhhh don't look so insulted, angel. I'm not gonna hurt one of your little booksellers,” the demon growled with condescension, waving a hand dismissively at the static figure of the old man, “I’m just not in the mood for any of that well-meaning chit-chat people bore you to death with when they don’t have anything better to do.” He then adopted a pair of voices to illustrate his point, stepping to either side of the table before him as he shifted between them like a ventriloquist having an identity crisis.

“**‘Oh, what’re you looking for, mate?’**

_ 'Nothing in particular.’_

** ‘We’ve got a fine selection of-’**

_ 'Just browsing. Sod off-_

“_-pleassse,_’” he hissed through gritted teeth when Aziraphale looked offended at his hypothetical treatment of the shopkeeper. Once the angel’s stern expression faltered, Crowley sighed and continued,

“**‘Weeeell, let me know if I can help you find something.’**

_ ‘Yeah, won’t do. By the way, there’s an Angel about to bluster in here looking for a dead man’s signature- hope you don’t mind serving occult and _ethereal_ beings.’_” At this point Crowley paused to raise his brows, let his glasses slide down enough to make proper eye contact, and gestured with open palms as if to say, ‘Sound familiar?’

Aziraphale pursed his lips in a frown and tried to look cross, but he softened after a rebellious moment and glanced away from the Demon to browse the bric-a-brac strewn across the nearby table. His gaze traveled over innocuous pun-saturated greeting cards with phrases like, ‘Olive you a lot,’ and, ‘Wishing you Eggcelent health,’ to settle on a set of miniature notebooks linked together with a simple key ring. They were no great feat of craftsmanship, simply hand-sized spiral books run through with a split ring, but the pastel covers and cartoon animals decorating them had a soft aura which he found cozy. Call him a hedonist, but aesthetically pleasing and comforting objects were meant to be appreciated, be they Angelic, human, or Demonic in make.

“Well, if you knew I was coming, is this a new form of thwarting?” the Angel asked half-jokingly, still looking pointedly at the books rather than his companion. He lifted the notebook set by the key ring, flipping through them carefully to study the covers. The first, bearing the image of an orange fox, read ‘Be Clever.’ Next was a green owl, suggesting, ‘Be Wise.’ Then came a brown bear, asserting, ‘Be Brave,’ and finally a pink deer meekly proposing, ‘Be Kind.’ They were delightful. Aziraphale felt a smile tugging at his thoughtfully-set lips as he turned the series over in order to cycle through them again.

Crowley watched him closely over the rims of his glasses, a softness in his yellow eyes that faded as he bit the inside of his cheek against a fiery response to the teasing allegation. “Demon or no, I don’t exist to thwart your ethereal _shopping_, Aziraphale,” he argued in a huff, assuming an insulted stance with a hand on his hip and a matching scowl in case the Angel looked up from his fascination with the cutesy little novelties, “I _thought_ it might be interesting to find out if they did actually have that fake 80s book while I was in the area thawing all the ice cream in a shop. You didn’t actually say _when_ you’d be making the trip.”

Aziraphale finally let himself look at Crowley again, pleased that the demon still didn’t seem interested in more grand demonic work now that the dust had settled on the diverted apocalypse… though he was saddened that an ice cream shop had been the target of his antics, as a parfait sounded splendid now. He noted the dramatic, defiant jaunt to his companion’s posture, and had to admit despite the theatrics that the Demon’s lack of ulterior motives made teasing him feel sour, like interrogating an innocent man.

Guiltily, he folded his hands and tried not to fidget with the books dangling from the ring in his grasp, fixing Crowley with a distinctly regretful gaze. “I’m sorry my dear, I just-” He sighed as if to propel his thoughts out by the force of his breath. “I’ve been feeling on edge lately, like this whole bit of peace has just been some trick and the rug is about to be pulled from under me. Heaven is rarely so silent, and I was a little worried when you appeared that Hell had done something to break the silence.” He sighed quieter this time, tearing his eyes morosely back to his find, and waited for Crowley to playfully dismiss his concerns and change the subject to something nicer- perhaps ply him with sweets under the guise of an unholy temptation- so they could go about their day as if he hadn’t brought it up.

Crowley’s gaze trailed to the quill in his hand before hardening, and he sneered, not at Aziraphale but at the pure white feather. “Yeah, it’s rotten. Six-thousand years of obedience will do that to you, angel, rebellion or no. Can’t believe your own freedom when they’re not around to pester you about it.”

The pen bent in his fingers, a crack forming in its side.

“It was like that for a while when I first fell, you know. As bad as it could be in Hell for a Fallen Angel, it didn’t feel real that the halos Up Top no longer had my punch card. Every day I thought ‘What if this is the test God uses to decide whether I belong in Heaven or Hell for Eternity?’ or ‘What if I failed before She told me the rules?’ Then I let being a Demon distract me from the past, and if Lucifer mistook that eagerness to defy a God that didn’t give a fuck about a lost Angel for a strong work ethic, no harm no foul. Weeeell, some harm and foul. Helly stuff, comes with the territory- you understand, angel…

“But yeah, it’s not just you being a worrywart this time. It’s what happens when you open a cage door for a bird who’s never flown. You’re still sitting in there, waiting because you’re afraid the door’s gonna snap in your face or you’re going to fall the second you step over that threshold and declare yourself free. Trust me, Aziraphale, you’re not going to Fall. Bastard or no, there’s too much of Heaven’s blasted Light in there- the Devil himself would choke on one of your smarmy smiles before he could bring himself to invite you down for a cuppa, and Heaven’s still afraid of the Angel who wouldn’t burn.”

Aziraphale’s grateful smile wavered, a warmth in his eyes that reflected unspoken compassion for the Angel who’d Fallen over 6000 years ago and still buried his wounded heart under a veneer of playful apathy and sass. “Yes, well… You’ve had to feel that way twice now- Heaven and Hell have both been unkind to you over your autonomy. Really, it seems so counterproductive to be punished for acting like humans when they were supposed to be God’s masterpiece. You’d think She would have started over after the mess at Eden if she really wanted Obedience.”

His cheeks puffed out in a momentary pout and then he sighed, tilting his head to fix the demon with a remorseful stare. “I swear I’m not pitying you Crowley, I just feel like I escaped Heaven’s punishment this long simply because I was posted on Earth before I was told enough to have doubts. After Eden, Heaven was so disinterested in humankind outside of the frame of The Great Plan that they didn’t bother to notice my ‘indiscretions’ in providing miracles unless it impacted their numbers, while you were made to Fall over insecurity before anybody had bothered to explain why God didn’t like questions. I don’t know whether it’s better or worse that I don’t feel so silly about worrying now… but thank you for the reassurance, my dear.”

Crowley’s face had shifted as they spoke, indignant brooding frown straightened to a soft line. His dark glasses had slipped most of the way down his nose, leaving wide yellow eyes split with black unshielded, and he looked for all the world like he’d been frozen in time mid-thought. Aziraphale assumed he was debating whether to snap back about the ‘thank you,’ but didn’t want to give his companion the opportunity to argue away his gratefulness.

“I’m buying these,” he announced loudly, watching Crowley blink and drag his gaze over the little books as he held them aloft.

The Demon’s pupils constricted as he bared half his teeth in a sneer at the saccharine message. Swiping the set without warning, Crowley cycled through them, apparent disgust growing with each pastel animal until he’d grimaced at the whole menagerie in turn. “Angel,” he sighed, shaking his head in disappointment, “you have better taste than this dreck. It’s appalling.”

“It’s inspirational!”

“Inspiration to vomit perhaps- you don’t even _use_ little notebooks like this. Don’t start hoarding now that your collection’s not being threatened by the End of Days. If I have to dig you out from a pile of books then we’re both going to have a problem.”

Aziraphale made a noise between a harrumph and a sigh at the patronizing look the Demon was giving him over his sunglasses. He felt like a willful child being told to put back a toy that wasn’t in the budget- though when he saw that happening, he tended to buy the toy himself and miracle it into the family’s bags with a note, so he wasn’t going to back off from a little disapproval. It’s not like he was making a whole cake for pudding and refusing to share. This was a mature, reasonable purchase for sentimental and aesthetic reasons that-

“I’m going to use it for record-keeping,” he stated defensively, stealing his intended purchase back and hugging the books to his chest protectively.

“Records..? So, you’re scaling down sales into the miniature now, O Smaug the Tartan-ble?” Crowley snickered at his own jab and pun, painting the Angel as a dragon that hoarded books.

Aziraphale frowned, cheeks tinged with color at the dig. His expression was complicated by the needy look on the Serpent’s face that nudged him to praise the literary reference made at his own expense. He was indignant, though grateful the Demon wasn’t again suggesting that Tolkien had based a certain begrudging burglar on the Angel himself.

“No I- I’ll write in them when something nice happens that matches one of the labels. Records of… positivity. Like a photograph album, but in words,” he insisted, eager to see the little books filled with brightness rather than business.

“Soooo, a diary?”

Aziraphale’s face heated considerably. “Perhaps.” He swallowed, cleared his throat, and marched to the desk where the shopkeeper was more clearly sleeping up-close. “I’ll leave a written receipt and payment- and please pay for that pen you broke, my dear. We don’t want to leave Rameses with damages on top of the intrusion.”

Crowley rolled his eyes, twirling an unmarred feather pen in his fingers. “Demonic miracle, angel. I’m not very well gonna graffiti pictures of Archangel Gargamel with a broken pen now, am I?”

Aziraphale sighed. _Of course._ He neatly wrote out a receipt for both the books and the pen, leaving an extra hundred pounds to cover for the inconvenience of losing a day of customers, then settled his purchase carefully in a plastic bag. After tying the handles to protect the paper inside from the ongoing rain, he tucked the package in the inner pocket of his jacket, straightened his lapels, and headed for the door without another word. On the way out, he turned the sign in the window to ‘Closed,’ and miracled the books that had held the door open onto a shelf. Crowley didn’t say anything either, but the Angel heard the snap of fingers, and the click of the door locking behind them after.

Frivolous miracles indeed. And this time there would be no notes.

Once they were outside, shielded by the awnings of the row of shops, Crowley produced a folding umbrella from his jacket. He struggled with the button on the handle for a moment before it careened open, almost hitting a pedestrian in the face. He cackled while Aziraphale apologized to the startled fellow who’d nearly been struck. Spring-loaded brollys were one of the Demon’s more self-sabotaging innovations in stress production.

“Lunch?” Crowley questioned, pushing his sunglasses up now that they were in public and holding the canopy of the umbrella over the Angel beside him as he awaited an answer.

Aziraphale was tempted to pout that he’d rather go book shopping since he’d wasted a two-hour cab ride for no Orwell, but the stormy weather was quite ideal for sitting inside and enjoying an afternoon meal together- and he hadn’t forgotten about the sushi shop on the next block.


End file.
